“Was he amiable?”
“Well, he started in the sulks, but he behaved perfectly properly at dinner.”
“Then I should suppose that he was included in that party to silence the ondits.”
She looked startled. “Are there any?”
“According to Gurney, people have begun to whisper that there’s something odd about him. It isn’t surprising.”
“No—I suppose it isn’t,” she said sadly. “But how dreadful if it came to his ears!”
“It isn’t likely to. Don’t look so harassed, love! Would you care to take a walk with me through the park, or shall I have my horses put to, and tool you round the countryside?”
“Good God, no!” she exclaimed. “That would give the tattle-boxes something to talk about indeed!”
“What of it?”
“Philip, it would be all over the house, in the twinkling of a bed-post! Sidlaw would tell my aunt, making it appear that I was behaving in a—in a clandestine way! No, don’t laugh! She’s an arch-intelligencer, you know: “that’s why the other servants hate her. She watched me go into the shrubbery, the day you came and sat beside me there, and she told my aunt, and my aunt spoke to me about the impropriety of it. I was never nearer to pulling caps with her! No, and never so thankful, when you set me down yesterday, that no one saw me enter the house! It is bad enough that we are secretly betrothed: it is not at all the thing! I couldn’t bear it to come to my aunt’s ears before I’ve told her myself that you’ve offered for me! She would think me so sly!” She saw that his brows had drawn together, and said imploringly: “Oh, Philip, don’t look angry! Pray try to understand!”
“I am angry!” he responded harshly, adding, as her eyes widened in dismay: “Oh, not with you! Never with you, Kate! Only with circumstance! I think it intolerable that we should be obliged to hide our teeth—play the concave-suit!—because of Minerva’s illness! But I do understand your scruples. You are very right: neither of us could bear the sort of backstairs gossip, and speculation, which would be provoked by any indiscretion. I must still wish that you would let me remove you from Staplewood—but I’ll say no more on that head!” He took her hand, and kissed it. “Don’t be troubled, my sweet! God forbid I should try to persuade you to do anything against your conscience!”
“It would weigh on me all my life if I left my aunt now!” she said, searching his face with anxious eyes.
“Very well,” he replied. He hesitated for a moment, and then, as she looked inquiringly at him, shook his head, crookedly smiling. “No. There’s a great deal I could say to you, but it would only set you at outs with me, so I’ll keep my tongue. Must I conceal the news from my uncle? I should wish to tell him—and at once.”
Her face brightened. “Oh, yes, pray do tell him! Then, if he gives his consent, it will make everything right, won’t it?”
“His consent, my little love, is not necessary!”
“His approval, then,” she said docilely.
“That’s not necessary either, though I should wish him to approve.”
“It is necessary to me,” she said. “It would be very hard, but I hope I should have the resolution not to marry you, if he should dislike it very much.”
“In that case,” he retorted, walking to the door, “there will be nothing for it but to abduct you!”
He left her laughing. She went upstairs to find Sidlaw lying in wait for her. Hostility flickered in Sidlaw’s eyes, but she spoke with meticulous civility. “If you please, Miss Kate, may I have a word with you?”
“Certainly! What is it?” Kate said, forcing herself to speak pleasantly.
“I did not venture to intrude on you, miss, when you and Mr Broome were eating a nuncheon, but I should be glad if you would speak to Mrs Thorne, which I do not care to do myself, under the circumstances.”
Repressing an exasperated sigh, Kate asked what she was to speak about, and thereby unleashed a spate of complaints, most of which she judged to be groundless. However, she promised to adjust them; and even to order the chef to make some tapioca jelly, which her ladyship thought she could fancy. She then went to the housekeeper’s room, where she was relieved to find that Mrs Thorne was so far restored to health as to have been able to consume a sustaining meal, the remains qf which were to be seen on a tray. She said that she had been trying to keep up her strength.
It was nearly half an hour later when Kate escaped from her garrulity, and Torquil and the doctor had returned from their expedition. She heard Torquil’s voice in the hall, demanding to be told where she was, and slipped away to her room. It had occurred to her that if she wrote to Sarah, explaining her circumstances, and warning her that she might shortly be arriving in London, Mr Philip Broorne would see her letter safely posted.
Her room contained an elegant little writing-table, furnished, (ironically, Kate thought, remembering the fate of her previous letters) with writing-paper, ink, wafers, a selection of pens, and a knife with which to sharpen them. Kate sat down to write to Sarah. She had meant to have given a full account of the situation at Staplewood, but the ink dried on her pen as she realized that, whatever she might confide to Sarah by word of mouth it would be injudicious—even dangerous—to set the whole story down on paper. So it was quite a short letter that was written, but it contained one piece of news which, Kate guessed, would delight Sarah.
She had been vaguely aware, while she tried to compose her letter, of voices in the garden, and as she wrote the superscription someone ran up the terrace steps, immediately below her window, and Torquil shouted: “Kate! Are you there? Do come down!”
She rose, and went to the window, leaning out to look down into his upturned face. He was smiling, and his eyes sparkled; as soon as he saw her, he said again coaxingly:’
“Do come out, coz! See what I’ve brought from Market Harborough!” He held up a circular metal plate, with a hole in the centre.
“But what is it?” she asked.
“Why, a quoit, of course! Matthew has been showing me how to throw it, and I can tell you it requires a great deal of skill! We’ve paced out the ground, and driven in the iron stakes at either end—” He looked over his shoulder to shout to the doctor: “What did you tell me the stakes are called, Matthew?”
“Take care!” Kate said warningly. “Don’t disturb your mother!”
He looked rather impatient, but said nothing. Dr Delabole, who had come across the lawn to the foot of the steps, said: “Hobs, my boy, hobs! Do you care to try your skill, Miss Kate? It is quite a diverting pastime!” .
She agreed to go down, wondering if Philip had emerged from the East Wing, and hoping that she might be able to snatch a word with him on her way out into the garden. However, there was no sign of him downstairs, so she was obliged to go out with the anxious question in her head unanswered.